Monday, November 19, 2007

Color Theory 8 - Art Lozzi - Snorkasaurus Hunter - salmon morning

This is my preferred color thinking for cartoons. Colors and techniques that make the cartoon seem warm, real and inviting. Even though this is very stylized-not realistic, it still has much depth.I love the colors and textures in these BGs from an episode of the Flintstones.The underpainting level is a salmon color (the sky)Then Art painted the other colors on top, leaving some areas transparent so that the sky color blends with the other colors.If you look at the walls, you can see a lot of clever decision making at work.There is a fine sponge texture between the sky layer and the more contrasted brush strokes on top.

Note the big broad brushtrokes at the edge of the round house. Those are placed deliberately around the edge-not in the middle.

CONTROL YOUR CHOICESThis is a good use of contrast and control. The strokes themselves have a lot of flair and aren't parallel-yet they still wrap around the house. The organic shapes of the strokes make the house seem real, not mechanical. Lozzi has made many creative decisions, rather than just fill his whole painting with equal amounts of texture or evenly spaced brush strokes.Looking closely you can see that the textures and brush strokes are not the same exact color tint as the underpainting. There are all kinds of subtle tint and value variations. This keeps the picture from looking monochromatic.There aren't any simple colors. No primaries or secondaries, and the overall effect of the clever color choices makes the environment be more colorful than the typical garish colors you see in many cartoons, both past and present.

More good stuff...Subtle variations in texture and color make the overall main color seem much richer and not so simplistic and flat as pure garish primaries and secondaries.

I love the rocks in the original Flintstones.

Is there anybody out there who can paint like this and needs a cartoon to let him?

rather than just fill his whole painting with equal amounts of texture or evenly spaced brush strokes.

That's what kills me about these modern cartoon backrounds. Even when I see some decent ones, the artist still want to make everything far too even. It dosen't look natural. Lozi obviously noticed that when you look at a rock,tree,etc. up close, you see all sorts of colors. You don't see any real pattern or measurement of what is color used wear. And like you said, no primary or secoundary crap.

John,Yeah, I go to Edinboro University of PA...I think George Nicholas dumped a lot of this stuff here (he taught here before he died).

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any scans. We have a lot of the large ones used for pans which would be difficult to scan. I do want to take pics of them sometime, though. There's a lot to learn from them as far as painting technique when you look at them up close. They're really elegant and simply handled.

Wow, I never realized just how amazing The Finstone's backgrounds actually looked. Now that's talent that will (probably) never be duplicated. But you never know. There's always fresh blood out there with just as much to prove, whose probably just as amazingly talented.

I love these colour choices, I collect them and try to use them when im doing my own stuff...hello, me name is Adele K Thomas, and I am a primary, secondary, and saturated victim of colour...IM SORRY!!!!!

Hey, TCM is showing all these Great Gildersleeve movies today. The voice of Captain Huffenpuff must have been inspired by this guy, because he sounds just like him. Having been ignorant to the Gildersleeve, I never had any idea where the voice came from. He's got an awesome way of talking. Maybe you can grab some clips for the blog.

to true what you say about the rocks way to many cartoons i've watched are just crap mostly from how sloppy the BG's where done.by the way i'm a big fan of your work i was fortunate to talk with capunicus and some of the staff about the weird al video sweet work and i hope to see alot more cheers

I developed a pretty heavy crush on background design a year ago and knew I had to give it a go.

Washed out scan of an abandoned attempt:http://webspace.utexas.edu/ace67/bg.gif

Unfortunately for yours truly, I was obsessed with lithography at the time, perhaps the most impractical medium for exploration into background work. But boy did can it ever produce some great textures.

One question, did Art Lozzi ever begin with colored paper, or did he merely start with a white board and wash it with one of those delightful, salmon pinks? The one thing I don't understand is how current cartoons view the word 'subtle' as a bad thing.